Cultivated in Cambridge, Bloody Knees are an on-the-rise indie punk band with an unprecedented determination.
In support of their latest EP, entitled You Can Have It, they played The Underworld in Camden as part of their UK tour.
The band are friends with a number of other bands in the indie scene, Peace, Swim Deep, and Wolf Alice to name a few, and members of each of these bands were present in the audience as Bloody Knees entered on to the stage with much fanfare. By this point, the crowd was surging forward, keen to get close to the members of the band and also get involved in the to-be-expected moshing.
With a number of EPs now under their belts, the four-piece had an array of material to choose from when it came to picking their set list. From the way in which the crowd reacted to the searingly hot, high-energy performance it was clear that they had chosen wisely. Tracks from the new EP like ‘Spinning’ worked seamlessly alongside older offerings ‘Stitches’ and ‘Daydream’, and the audience erupted as the band played ‘Maybe It’s Easy’, the titular track from Bloody Knees’ penultimate EP.
There aren’t many bands these days that are willing to put literal blood, sweat, and tears into their art, but that’s exactly what makes Bloody Knees unique enough to pique the interest of the normally quite unfazed indie scene. They had the crowd at the Underworld in an absolute frenzy throughout their hour-long set, and as they performed their final song it was touching to see the likes of Theo Ellis (of Wolf Alice fame) crowd surfing alongside the headlining band’s most dedicated.
Towards the end of the show, lead singer Bradley Griffiths off-handedly invited the entire audience to the afterparty at The Hawley Arms, a former favourite of Amy Winehouse’s and current haunt of many of the bands that popped up in the crowd at the gig. Bloody Knees are a band that feels like a family, and they’re always willing to share that with their fans.
Photos by Imogen Bird.
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